Multiverse

Some scientists have suggested that the
Universe we live in might be just a tiny part of a much larger object sometimes
called the Multiverse (meaning "many universes") each completely separate and
unable to communicate with any of the others.

Each universe in the multiverse is
completely separate from all the others

The existence of the Multiverse was first
suggested on theoretical grounds by Russian Andrei Linde as he developed his
Chaotic Inflation Theory.

Creation of the Universe

According to Linde's eternal
inflation theory, new universes bubble into existence all the time within the Multiverse, probably as a random event. Note that there might be
many such universes in the Multiverse. If so, each must be completely
independent of all the others and governed by different laws of science.

In this story I will choose one of them and
trace its evolution as it turns into our present Universe, where conditions are
just right so that stars, planets and life would form.

The Universe is what we can see from Earth using the most powerful telescopes - sometimes called the
"observable Universe".

I use a capital U to differentiate our
Universe from all the others which might have formed in the Multiverse.

Once the Universe had been created, it was
completely divorced from the enclosing Multiverse, occupying a totally
different spacetime, so that nothing can ever move into or out of our Universe.
We are trapped inside it. We can never visit or even see the billions of other
universes which might be out there somewhere. We do not know what interesting
things may be happening in them.

Nevertheless, there might be a way of
testing the eternal inflation theory.